Gold miner set to reboot Hong Kong listing type not seen in 12 years

Indonesian gold miner PT Merdeka Gold Resources is gearing up for a Hong Kong stock-market debut with a listing structure that’s fallen out of favor for more than a decade, a sign of the city’s booming market for fundraising drumming up interest across Asia and beyond.

The Jakarta-listed company, a unit of PT Merdeka Copper Gold that went public in Jakarta in 2025, is planning a second float in Hong Kong as soon as June to raise at least $500 million, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named to discuss nonpublic information. It plans to sell Hong Kong depositary receipts, according to the people and as suggested by the listing paperwork.

Listings in Hong Kong are on the upswing, with proceeds this year on track to surpass the four-year high of 2025. While mainland Chinese and Hong Kong companies have dominated recent fundraising activity, the stock exchange has been pushing to bring issuers to the market from further afield, including less capital-rich regions like Southeast Asia.

The surprise in the Merdeka deal is the potential reboot of the instrument known as HDR for the first time in 12 years. The listing would test investor appetite for the securities as well as for non-Chinese listings — with some prospective issuers closely tracking its success as they weigh their options.

Deliberations, including on the size and timing, are ongoing, the people added. The proceeds raised would ultimately depend on gold prices, some of the people said. A Merdeka Gold representative declined to comment.

The Hong Kong exchange introduced HDRs in 2008, which represent underlying shares, as an alternative listing route for companies from markets that prohibit share issuance or the maintenance of a share register abroad. But unlike American depositary receipts — a similar way for foreign companies to list in the US — HDRs have struggled to gain traction.

After an initial wave of listings, interest gradually faded as trading volumes declined and several companies delisted, including Coach parent Tapestry Inc. and commodity-trading giant Glencore Plc. Only clothing brand Uniqlo’s owner Fast Retailing Co. still has HDRs trading in Hong Kong since its 2014 debut — the city’s last such listing.

Trading activity in Fast Retailing’s HDRs shows that decline. About 8,600 HDRs were traded daily on average last month, down from more than 198,000 in their first year. That compares with about 1.2 million shares traded each day on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“In the absence of active trading, investor attention actually tends to decline further over time,” said Kenny Ng, strategist at China Everbright Securities International Co. “In the short term, I expect this low-trading-volume situation may continue.”

To see a meaningful revamp, HDRs would need more high-profile companies to adopt such listings, Ng said.

Companies exploring the securities have typically been those that needed to overcome home market restrictions on issuing shares abroad, said Jeckle Chiu, a partner advising on transactions at the law firm Johnson Stokes & Master.

Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. in 2023 struck a cooperation agreement with the Indonesia Stock Exchange to explore cross-border listings in both markets, part of a broader effort to woo non-Chinese companies to list in the Asian financial hub. Firms in the pipeline for a Hong Kong listing include PT MNC Digital Entertainment, part of an Indonesian conglomerate led by a founder with ties to US President Donald Trump, and the China-based business of Italian equipment-parts maker Carraro Group.

For Merdeka Gold, the listing would also offer an alternate venue at a time when Indonesia’s stock market is under pressure. The benchmark Jakarta Composite Index is the world’s worst performing major stock gauge this year, having lost 28.9% as fiscal discipline concerns compound risks of an MSCI Inc. market reclassification and a potential credit rating downgrade. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index is down 0.1% in the same period.

“The MSCI issue has highlighted Indonesia’s free-float, liquidity and transparency challenges, so a Hong Kong listing can help strong Indonesian companies broaden their investor base and reduce reliance on domestic market liquidity alone,” said Mohit Mirpuri, a partner at SGMC Capital Pte.

Merdeka Gold shares, though, have outperformed the market. They have risen 151% since their Jakarta listing in September 2025, giving the company a market capitalization of $6 billion, but have come off their peak in March. The price of bullion has fallen since the start of the Iran war.

(By Dave Sebastian)